This relates generally to adhesives and, more particularly, to curing adhesives using ultraviolet and visible light.
Adhesives are widely used to attach structures to each other. As an example, electronic devices such as computers and cellular telephones often contain adhesives for mounting components to housing structures, for attaching housing structures to each other, and for otherwise assembling structures within a completed device.
Thermally cured adhesives can be difficult to control and involve the use of elevated temperatures. The use of elevated temperatures may not be desirable, because many devices include sensitive components with relatively low temperature tolerances. In contrast, ultraviolet and visible (UV/Vis) light curing adhesives can be cured immediately upon application of UV/Vis radiation at room temperature. The ease of controlling the curing process and the relatively low temperatures involved in curing make UV/Vis radiation curing adhesives satisfactory in a wide range of applications.
It can be challenging, however, to use UV/Vis radiation curing adhesives in assemblies that contain opaque structures. If care is not taken, the opaque nature of a structure may cause the structure to block UV/Vis radiation from reaching the adhesive during the curing process. If too much UV/Vis radiation is blocked, the adhesive may be poorly cured.
It would therefore be desirable to be able to provide improved electronic device structures to facilitate the use of UV/Vis radiation curing adhesives.